Albany Med details $110M transformation

Albany Med details redevelopment plan — its "civic responsibility" to the city

By Jordan Carleo-Evangelist

Updated 6:56 am, Wednesday, July 24, 2013

Photo: Lori Van Buren

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People look at a board dispalying renderings of the residential redevelopment of Park South Tuesday, July 23, 2013, at Albany Medical Center in Albany, N.Y. (Lori Van Buren / Times Union)

People look at a board dispalying renderings of the residential redevelopment of Park South Tuesday, July 23, 2013, at Albany Medical Center in Albany, N.Y. (Lori Van Buren / Times Union)

Photo: Lori Van Buren

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Albany Medical Center President and CEO James J. Barba unveils plans for the residential redevelopment of Park South Tuesday, July 23, 2013, at Albany Medical Center in Albany, N.Y. (Lori Van Buren / Times Union) less

Albany Medical Center President and CEO James J. Barba unveils plans for the residential redevelopment of Park South Tuesday, July 23, 2013, at Albany Medical Center in Albany, N.Y. (Lori Van Buren / Times ... more

Photo: Lori Van Buren

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Albany Medical Center President and CEO James J. Barba unveils plans for the residential redevelopment of Park South Tuesday, July 23, 2013, at Albany Medical Center in Albany, N.Y. (Lori Van Buren / Times Union) less

Albany Medical Center President and CEO James J. Barba unveils plans for the residential redevelopment of Park South Tuesday, July 23, 2013, at Albany Medical Center in Albany, N.Y. (Lori Van Buren / Times ... more

Photo: Lori Van Buren

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A press conference was held at Albany Medical Center where plans were unveiled for the residential redevelopment of Park South Tuesday, July 23, 2013 in Albany, N.Y. (Lori Van Buren / Times Union)

A press conference was held at Albany Medical Center where plans were unveiled for the residential redevelopment of Park South Tuesday, July 23, 2013 in Albany, N.Y. (Lori Van Buren / Times Union)

Photo: Lori Van Buren

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Albany Mayor Jerry Jennings talks about the plans for the residential redevelopment of Park South Tuesday, July 23, 2013, at Albany Medical Center in Albany, N.Y. (Lori Van Buren / Times Union)

Albany Mayor Jerry Jennings talks about the plans for the residential redevelopment of Park South Tuesday, July 23, 2013, at Albany Medical Center in Albany, N.Y. (Lori Van Buren / Times Union)

Photo: Lori Van Buren

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Tim Owens, general manager at Tri City Rentals, talks about the plans for the residential redevelopment of Park South Tuesday, July 23, 2013, at Albany Medical Center in Albany, N.Y. (Lori Van Buren / Times Union) less

Tim Owens, general manager at Tri City Rentals, talks about the plans for the residential redevelopment of Park South Tuesday, July 23, 2013, at Albany Medical Center in Albany, N.Y. (Lori Van Buren / Times ... more

Photo: Lori Van Buren

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Renderings of the residential redevelopment of Park South Tuesday, July 23, 2013, at Albany Medical Center in Albany, N.Y. (Lori Van Buren / Times Union)

Renderings of the residential redevelopment of Park South Tuesday, July 23, 2013, at Albany Medical Center in Albany, N.Y. (Lori Van Buren / Times Union)

Photo: Lori Van Buren

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Rendering of the residential redevelopment of Park South Tuesday, July 23, 2013, at Albany Medical Center in Albany, N.Y. (Lori Van Buren / Times Union)

Rendering of the residential redevelopment of Park South Tuesday, July 23, 2013, at Albany Medical Center in Albany, N.Y. (Lori Van Buren / Times Union)

Photo: Lori Van Buren

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Rendering of the residential redevelopment of Park South Tuesday, July 23, 2013, at Albany Medical Center in Albany, N.Y. (Lori Van Buren / Times Union)

Rendering of the residential redevelopment of Park South Tuesday, July 23, 2013, at Albany Medical Center in Albany, N.Y. (Lori Van Buren / Times Union)

Photo: Lori Van Buren

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Rendering of the residential redevelopment of Park South Tuesday, July 23, 2013, at Albany Medical Center in Albany, N.Y. (Lori Van Buren / Times Union)

Rendering of the residential redevelopment of Park South Tuesday, July 23, 2013, at Albany Medical Center in Albany, N.Y. (Lori Van Buren / Times Union)

Photo: Lori Van Buren

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Rendering of the residential redevelopment of Park South Tuesday, July 23, 2013, at Albany Medical Center in Albany, N.Y. (Lori Van Buren / Times Union)

Rendering of the residential redevelopment of Park South Tuesday, July 23, 2013, at Albany Medical Center in Albany, N.Y. (Lori Van Buren / Times Union)

Photo: Lori Van Buren

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Rendering of the residential redevelopment of Park South Tuesday, July 23, 2013, at Albany Medical Center in Albany, N.Y. (Lori Van Buren / Times Union)

Rendering of the residential redevelopment of Park South Tuesday, July 23, 2013, at Albany Medical Center in Albany, N.Y. (Lori Van Buren / Times Union)

Photo: Lori Van Buren

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People talks with Albany Medical Center President and CEO James J. Barba, left, near a board showing renderings of the residential redevelopment of Park South Tuesday, July 23, 2013, at Albany Medical Center in Albany, N.Y. (Lori Van Buren / Times Union) less

People talks with Albany Medical Center President and CEO James J. Barba, left, near a board showing renderings of the residential redevelopment of Park South Tuesday, July 23, 2013, at Albany Medical Center in ... more

A helicopter flies over Myrtle Avenue to land atop Albany Medical Center on New Scotland Avenue in the city's Park South neighborhood in Albany, NY, Wednesday June 5, 2013. (John Carl D'Annibale / Times Union)

A helicopter flies over Myrtle Avenue to land atop Albany Medical Center on New Scotland Avenue in the city's Park South neighborhood in Albany, NY, Wednesday June 5, 2013. (John Carl D'Annibale / Times Union)

Photo: John Carl D'Annibale

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A helicopter flies over Myrtle Avenue to land atop Albany Medical Center on New Scotland Avenue in the city's Park South neighborhood in Albany, NY, Wednesday June 5, 2013. (John Carl D'Annibale / Times Union)

A helicopter flies over Myrtle Avenue to land atop Albany Medical Center on New Scotland Avenue in the city's Park South neighborhood in Albany, NY, Wednesday June 5, 2013. (John Carl D'Annibale / Times Union)

Photo: John Carl D'Annibale

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Albany Med details $110M transformation

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Albany

Five- and six-story apartment buildings with street-level shops would rise above New Scotland Avenue, acting as a gateway to razed and rebuilt blocks of apartment buildings, medical offices and a new six-story parking garage under a $110 million Park South redevelopment plan unveiled Tuesday by Albany Medical Center.

The two-phase plan — a partnership with Tri-City Rentals, one of the region's largest owners of apartment complexes — would produce 251 market-rate apartments and 27,000 square feet of retail space on parts of three blocks just north of the hospital, medical college and research center's rapidly growing campus.

"Through public and private partnerships, we will build a neighborhood," Albany Med CEO James Barba said at a news conference at the hospital's soon-to-open $360 million patient pavilion. It towers over a section of Myrtle Avenue where long-vacant homes would give way to a 135,000-square-foot medical office building and 875-space parking garage.

The project — some seven years in the making — marks the medical center's first foray into residential development in what Barba described as an effort to protect the half-billion dollars already invested in the area and in recognition of what he called Albany Med's "civic responsibility" to the city.

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Community meeting

Albany Med will host an informational meeting about its redevelopment plans for Park South residents at 7 p.m. Wednesday in the medical center's Huyck Auditorium.

The medical center's vision is based largely on the 2006 Park South Urban Renewal Plan, a playbook drafted by city officials and the community for the revival of the once crime- and drug-ridden neighborhood that gets its name for its location just south of Washington Park.

Realizing Albany Med's piece of that vision, however, would require the demolition of every building on the north side of Myrtle Avenue, both sides of Morris Street and the south side of Dana Avenue between New Scotland Avenue and Robin Street — including 37 buildings that Albany Med currently rents to its own employees, Barba said.

Two other landmarks of Park South's grittier past — the now-closed Quintessence diner and the building housing Valentine's rock club, both on New Scotland Avenue — also would disappear. In their place would rise a five-story building with shops and apartments.

While the renewal plan, approved by the Common Council, called for extensive demolition, it had also envisioned the rehabilitation of 13 buildings — including Quintessence — on the Albany Med-controlled blocks of Dana, Morris, Myrtle and New Scotland that are now slated to be razed. That may be one of the deviations from the renewal plan that city lawmakers will have to sign off on first, said Councilman Richard Conti, who represents the neighborhood. Conti said he nonetheless believes Albany Med's proposal substantially honors the renewal plan's vision.

At six stories, the Myrtle Avenue parking garage and a row of mixed-used buildings on New Scotland between Myrtle and Morris are also a level taller than envisioned in the plan.

The first phase of the project is scheduled begin in 2014 with the construction of the garage, medical office building and the apartments on the south side of Morris Street. But because plans call for using the land between Morris Street and Dana Avenue as a construction staging area, Barba said, Albany Med hopes to demolish all of the buildings involved before the start of the first phase.

Barba said he has personally directed medical center staff members to help relocate current residents as "humanely and responsibly" as possible — up to and including subsidizing their new rents if necessary. Since the completion of the urban renewal plan, fears of gentrification have piggybacked on the optimism for a watershed urban rebirth voiced by some neighborhood leaders.

Barba, an Albany native, recalled the trauma inflicted on residents— including his own grandmother — of the neighborhood bulldozed by the state in the 1960s to make way for Empire State Plaza, a much larger project, and vowed not preside over a similar heartache.

"That's not going to happen," he said.

Still, some tenants greeted the news Tuesday with uneasiness and anger, saying they had been notified only a day earlier by letters dropped in their mailboxes that they will have to be out of their homes by December.

Tay Holt, 35, of Morris Street questioned why Albany Med had not told them of the looming changes when their leases expired and repairs to the mostly one- and two-family buildings were repeatedly delayed.

"They could have given us the courtesy of that information," said Brown, also of Morris Street. "I'm not against growth. I'm not against progress."

An informational community meeting on the plan is scheduled for 7 p.m. Wednesday at Albany Med's Huyck Auditorium.

On Dana and Morris, homes will be replaced by three-story apartment buildings with off-street parking that officials hope will attract professionals eager for the urban lifestyle that Park South, with its sidewalks and proximity to the park and Lark Street, provides. At mid-block, the two streets will be linked by a courtyard lined with trees.

Albany Med will invest $55 million in the project, with the rest being matched by Tri-City Rentals, the Albany firm that operates two dozen apartment communities in the Capital Region.

Columbia Development will help steward the project through city planning and zoning approvals, with BBL Construction Services handling construction, expected to be complete in 2015. The two firms have already played a major role in Albany Med's rebuilding of the neighborhood's commercial spine along lower New Scotland Avenue, which since 2006 has gained several medical office buildings along with bank, pharmacy and restaurant chains and a new parking garage and hotel.

"This area was crime-ridden," Mayor Jerry Jennings said Tuesday of Park South's past. "Go back eight years, 10 years and look at this corridor. ... Great things can be accomplished through effective collaboration."